


The End To Her Forever (and the beginning of his)

by livingtheobsessedlife



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Immortal Sophie Devereaux, Romance, pre-Nigerian Job, then everything that follows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11251299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife
Summary: Sophie Devereaux, in certain circles, is regarded as many formidable things (the most notable is that she is supposedly immortal). All the rumors are most definitely true. Yes, even the immortal one (crazy, right?), but none of it was particularly important to the way she lived her life until one day she met Nathan Ford and suddenly it became the most important part.





	The End To Her Forever (and the beginning of his)

“Now remember,” Nate addressed the security team, “We suspect Sophie Devereaux. She will most likely use an alias. Known for smooth talking and art theft, she is regarded as an extremely valuable target. Reports have told us that she has dark hair, dark brown eyes, a natively English accent, though she can easily imitate others. Age is indefinite. She-”

“Indefinite?” Somebody grunted, “How can an age be indefinite? Is she young or old?”

Nate rolled his eyes, a glare settling over the line of his lips (he had to deal with such inexperience!), “We do believe that Ms. Devereaux may be immortal. It is a rather controversial theory, but there has been evidence to back it up. Now, any other questions?”

He was met only with indignant nods and broken yawns. 

************ 

Nate never minded art museums. He married an art expert and worked at an insurance company that specialized in art theft. There was no way to avoid the places. No matter how much Sterling would always grumble about them, Nate actually enjoyed the way the art jumped out of the stark whiteness of the walls and the way every piece had a story. 

However, Nate’s favorite part of the galleries were never in fact the art. No, it was the people. The pensive expressions. The way that by scanning a near-empty white-washed room you could see the gears turning in people’s minds, thoughts attempting to decipher emotion-powered brush strokes.

And he did so, this time in a high end gallery nestled somewhere in the heart of Prague. Nate searched for some gorgeous form of supposedly British calamity, simultaneously eying the indignant children, the slumping security, the experienced artists, the novice dreamers. He watched it all unfold. _His favorite part_. 

In this, he almost missed her. Almost. She was standing there, in her wholly-expected beauty, smiling at the intense Kadinsky as if it had eyes and lips just like her (she didn't usually go for Kadinsky as she wasn't much of a fan of abstracts, but for the price it was going at, she could make an exception). It was the very same Kandinsky Nate had come to insure. 

Nate approached her, eyes remaining on the vibrant painting perched on the pale wall, silent and solid.

“I'm Nate Ford.” He said, that minor itch of pride scratching at his voice. Nate didn't look to her, didn't quite give away the sense that he was about to corner her, just stood staring, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't just a tad impressed by that.

“I'm an insurance investigator.” He then added needlessly (she knew what he was. He _stunk_ of insurance investigator. She could tell what he did from a mile away, and she was a lot less impressed by his occupation than she was of the rest of him). 

She stood there just like him for a moment, pretending to stare contemplatively at the painting before her. She allowed the costume that her alias had become to fall over her, considered her new name, new life, the altered accent. She had the character perfected to a T.

But instead, her tongue felt heavy in her mouth and when she moved to talk, it fell with glorious calm, hiding beneath a small smile, “Sophie Devereaux,” She said with her native accent, “I'm an art thief.”

He inhaled pointedly before he finally turned to her, slowly glanced at her from the side, “I know what you're up to.” He said, smirking, “I'm going to catch you, I hope you know that.”

Anybody else, that would have scared. 

But Sophie Devereaux had survived much scarier threats than that of a lowly insurance investigator (she once met the fury of a hot-tempered Ottoman sultan who rather loved his own wealth and she never once flinched). She laughed, “I’d _love_ to see you try.” And as the words rolled off her lips with a chuckle, they bit Nate with mockery.

She leaned into him, ever-so-slightly sinking into the fabric of his suit jacket, hoping to pull his eyes down to her touch. She was surprised at the way her stomach rolled and her fingertips burned when she pulled away. Sophie ignored the feeling, ignored all feeling, just smirked and told herself to focus on the _art_. 

Nate looked patiently back at the Kandinsky, feeling safe, like he won (oh _boy_ did Sophie know differently). He exhaled momentarily, so briefly that not a person in the room would have had time to blink. But then, when he looked back- _to smirk, to nullify her mocking tone_ \- she was gone. She had vanished in a way that only The Sophie Devereaux could manage. 

The next day, the Kandinsky vanished as well. There was no patient clack of stiletto heels on floor tiles or gentle swish of an emerald gown in this case. The abstract had been snatched in the night under the illumination of moons and stars and quiet city lights blinking down on the talented grifter. 

She left the wall empty, didn't bother replacing it with a forgery. Instead, she left a note on the ground below it. The letters were sprawled about on lilac purple stationery that smelled like her perfume in lazily precise writing, “ _You’ll have to try harder_.” 

Nate was angry, annoyed, impressed. Sophie Devereaux had gotten the better of him, but all he could think of as he tucked the note into his pocket was what country he would run into her next. 

Somewhere on the opposite side of Europe, Sophie Devereaux was trying her damned best to not think the same thing (and okay, failing miserably). 

At least Sophie had the visual additive of a Kadinsky to placate her spirits.

************** 

Sometime between Prague and Paris she noticed it. It was either in Berlin, or Moscow, or maybe Budapest when she finally really looked in the mirror and saw that shine of change against her complexion. 

The grey hair shined against the darkness of the rest of her hair, and it mocked her, just the same way she had done to Nate in Prague. Her stomach rolled just the same way as it had done when she had leaned into him and she felt herself burn.

As quickly as possible, Sophie went to the priciest, most well-renowned hair salon in the city and got her roots touched up. She had never had to do that before, and she knew perfectly well why (he had started her age, been introduced to her as a gut-instinct soulmate and spurred the aging process for her for the first time in _centuries_ ). 

Just to spite said reason (Darn you, Nate, making her go to all this trouble), Sophie went out that night and stole a painting that she knew was insured by IYS. Then she slept with the mark just to prove that a certain IYS investigator wasn't getting to her.

The entire time, she felt as if that single silver hair, though covered and concealed by hair dye, was on fire, calling out to everyone, and making sure that everybody knew the sudden truth: _Sophie Devereaux had finally begun to crack_. 

************* 

Okay, so maybe she said the reason she was dedicating so much time to this Parisian millionaire was because he had a Degas in his collection (she had a soft spot for Degas’s honest Impressionism) that she was itching to get her hands on, but she wasn't fooling anybody. She knew full well that the gullible, Parisian mark insured all of his art with IYS. 

When she hadn't expected it, however, Nate had shown up, claiming his visits on the terms of his annual “inspection” of the art (she had never heard of insurance companies doing that before). She was wearing her favorite little sundress of the brightest blue that she knew set off her eyes perfectly and stopped so high up her legs that they complimented her estival tan perfectly. 

She had the millionaire wrapped around her finger, trapped in her grace and voice and vision. It was all so easy. Figures Nate would show up to completely destroy all of her hard work at the very last second. 

They met when Nate walked down the opulent main hall of her mark’s mansion and it hurt a lot more than she expected and a lot more than she wanted it to when he pretended he didn't recognize her.

Nate chatted with the man beside her, ignoring her to the best of his ability (which really was quite impressive considering she was not the easiest person to ignore, and in that dress? That man deserved an _award_ ). She looked up at Nate beneath her lashes and dared him to call her out as she held sweetly onto the crook of the mark’s arm.

“Adele, _ma fleur_ ,” the mark turned to her, his fingertips brushing against her bare arms in the way that only he thought was sexy, “Please forgive me, but I must discuss matters of my art with Mr. Ford here in private. I will still see you for dinner, yes?”

She replied in a perfect French accent, a smile pushing at the corners of her lips, “Of course, cheri,” Sophie pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek, leaving the portly mark wanting so much more, before disappearing, brushing past Nate in a way she desperately hoped he found irresistible. Somehow, he did, and he turned his back and ignored the heat and temptation of turning around and seeing her smile. 

Sophie was rather happy that she would have to cut the con short upon Nate’s appearance, though she would never admit it. Really the millionaire was much too easy a mark for her skill set (a junior high schooler could have tricked him!) and she would much rather be chased by the masterful Nate Ford than some money-dependent nobody.

Later that evening, Sophie entered her hotel room after having dinner with the mark, breathless and tired and just a little bit tipsy to find Nate, wordless and _in her room_. Nate was leaning against the petite love seat at the bottom of her bed as if he did it much too often.

“Nate Ford.” She said without even looking up at him, toeing her shoes off by the door, bracing herself on a dresser before taking a step forward. 

“Sophie Devereaux.”

“What brings you to my hotel room so late at night?” Sophie asked, folding her jacket over a chair and doing her best to ignore the stunning combination of the alcohol trilling through her veins and the way he had his dress shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

“Well, what brings you to Paris, Sophie?”

“You’re ignoring my question.”

“And you’re a world class art thief consorting with my client.”

She shrugged and opened the mini bar, pulling out two glasses and a small bottle of white wine, “What? I can’t just enjoy the city?” She faked a pout, “Why do you have to assume I'm here to steal something?”

“You told him your name was Adele.”

“So? What if that really is my name?” She handed him a glass and he downed it all at once.

“Is it?” He raised an eyebrow in her direction, setting down his glass.

She couldn’t stop the smile, “Of course not.”

Nate stared at her for another long moment. His gaze was searing as he studied her, searched for her lies and truths among the visage of her newest character, of the absent space between Adele and Sophie and her real name that he wouldn’t know until much, much later. She hated the feeling it gave her, the shiver it sent down her spine when his gaze did not relent, even after she stared back and dared him to look away (he didn't avert that gaze of his, just blushed and smirked).

He rose from his seat, pushing away his glass definitively. With a grin, he turned to her, “I’ll be watching you, Devereaux.”

She shivered involuntarily, “I know you will.”

The door shut behind him with a much-too-unsatisfactory thud. And just like that she was left alone again in her empty Paris hotel room. 

************** 

Sophie went three more days without seeing him again, assuming him to be buried in paperwork of some sort or another as she buried herself in little French pet names and gifted jewels. 

Her heart periodically soared and sunk over the days. Too many times, Sophie could have sworn she recognized that distinctive mess of curls receding down some opulent hallway, but it was never him and she hated the way that the strings in her heart got just a little tighter every time she thought it was. 

Sophie knew she had to steal what she came for before the sway of her hips proved suddenly ineffective and the mark decided the pretty blond that walked past him every day was worth more of his time than she was. Or worse, that Nate would betray her true identity. But she daringly dragged out the game nonetheless, pulling Nate into a steadfast overtime alongside her. 

But she had to get to business eventually, and so, under the cover of shadows and homeless hallways, Sophie snuck off to the mark’s attic, home of the visual delicacy that was the glorious Degas. 

Sophie was almost disappointed when she managed to fit her knife into the seam between the frame and the paint. She had expected Nate to be halfway to stopping her by then, a hand outreached and grasping around her wrist. But she was alone in the attic, surrounded by nothing but blankets of dust and the bones of antiques, a graveyard of priceless heirlooms. 

Less than five minutes later Sophie had the painting rolled up and hidden beneath her arm (It emotionally _pained_ her to do these things to such a masterpiece, slicing and folding and treating such masterful work like shameless motel art). But just at the last second, Nate appeared. 

“ _Sophie_!” His voice wavered in barking warning, no familiar grin in sight, “Freeze!”

She turned to him, hesitating, before leaving Nate with a grin of taunts. She was stopped after a step, feet pulled taut, movement constricted, as she was slashed with the tearing of body-wracking pain. Her skin burned, pulling apart from its painful center, and that startled her more than anything. 

Sophie had never hurt like this. Sure, she had been stabbed, shot, burned, and everything in between in the past, but it had never really hurt. Her infinite age had always held as a steadfast shield. She despised the fact that it hurt, that Nate made her feel pain in ways she had never known before. That Nate’s gaze and his presence and those goddamn crystal blue eyes toyed with her age and brought her whole life rattling on a bullet train of change like all the other mortals. 

“ _You wanker_!” Sophie shrieked at him before a single coherent thought could penetrate the pain, her voice taut and swollen in an abnormal imbalance of rage and pain. 

Her hand was moving of its own accord and suddenly her gun was pointed at Nate (she didn't always carry a gun, rarely actually, but she had a very limited window and could not allow for consequences in this case) and her finger was pressing down on the trigger and the next thing she knew, Nate was yelling out in shared agony with the grifter.

***************

It was well past midnight when she visited him, accompanied by the insistent beeping of machinery and a blanket gifted to her by the night. Her brows were furrowed in concern as she looked down at his tired form, slouched among the stale wool of an uncomfortable hospital bed. Sophie had to restrain from reaching out and allowing her fingers to slip between his wild curls. He had never looked more calm. 

When he woke up, there was nothing but a sliver of shimmery moonlight crisscrossing her cheeks, a crude bandage perpendicular to it around her shoulder. But Nate Ford could recognize her from 100 miles away in the pouring rain 

“Soph-” He groaned out weekly, His voice hoarse, his throat desert dry, “You can't be here. You could get caught.” His eyes flickered to her obvious wound in time with the beeping of the heart monitor. 

“I know.” She said, “I'll be gone before morning.”

He looked at her, tried to figure her out why she would steal art and shoot back and everything in between and yet she would also stay with him whilst in the hospital for a gunshot wound (even though she was the one to offer him the injury). 

He tried to smile too, but his lips were pulled back down by exhaustion and medication. Nate patted her hand lazily, his palm lingering tiredly, “Thanks, Soph,” He slurred, falling back into a deep sleep. 

Sophie looked down to find Nate’s hand still on top of hers.

Soon, the grifter fell asleep as well. 

**************

Sophie didn't hear from Nate again for a very long time. 

She heard about his son through the proverbial grape vine, through criminal whisper chains. The other grifters and con men rejoiced that The Legendary Nate Ford was out of commission for awhile, that there was one less talented man out there looking for them. Sophie didn't. She sat on the sidelines in extreme discontent. She knew she should at least pretend to be happy but she couldn't ignore the awful twisting coming from the pit of her stomach. 

Sophie had heard nearly two weeks too late that his son has died and her souls crushes for him. She can only imagine the pain that Nate Ford, the man that caused her grey, must be in and imagine she does. 

The cons don't seem quite as rewarding, The jobs, and jewels, and money don't seem like quite enough anymore and so Sophie decides that an indefinite early retirement is in order.

She randomly points to a map and chooses Chicago, joins an acting studio, picks a new name, and tries to put on a smile convincing enough to get her by in the busy city. 

It's the last thing she expects when she thinks she sees the vague transparency of Nate’s profile from beyond the harsh spotlights of the stage. She isn't sure it's him, blinded by the indefinite White above.

Sophie pushes the thought out of her head, too afraid to go through the pain of losing Nate to misery, too afraid of the pain of his startling gunshot that buckles her knees and pulls her down, the pain of lifting his hand off hers in the morning, and the pain of not stealing a painting just to get caught. 

When he approached her, Sophie was nothing but smiles in a genuine way that she hadn't been in months. She wanted to embrace him and run her fingers through his hair and tell him that she knew everything was going to be alright.

But then Nate stepped under the dusty gold of a street light and she really noticed how different he looked. 

He was drunk, that much was obvious. He wasn't wearing a tie or a suit jacket or even a...belt, and she could see the little trail of liquid gold running parallel to his shirt buttons, dragging a stain down his chest. His hair looked like it had been neglected and without combing for weeks (and somehow that made it even sexier!). She had never seen Nate _more_ of a mess!

And then his eyes lifted up heavily, bloodshot and dejected. His veins must have been pumped with alcohol, an equal ration of crimson and gold (she always knew scotch was his favorite). But there's something about that damn blue, like water from a real Arctic iceberg or a slice of the sky during a timeless, crystalline summertime . There's that look. The longing and desire mixed horrendously with the alcohol and damn her if she could say no because this man is the person that stole the rest of her infinite age.

She felt his eyes burn through her virtuous attire and her flesh and bones and the muscles that hold her together from the inside out. Sophie could swear he knew exactly what she did, knew the lengths she had gone to cover up how he made her _feel_ things she had never felt before, how she had dyed her hair over no over and over again and tried her damned hardest not to think of him when she was in bed after a hard day. When her eyes meet his, she could swear he's looking right at her, _through her_ , as they stand innocently across from each other in the alley of her small theater. 

“I'm a citizen now,” Sophie said, trying to convince herself just as much as him, her heart in her throat, “Honest.” 

And he grins and even though he's more drunk than she's ever seen him, intoxicated past misery and into a lull of constancy, she finds it just as amazing (and attractive) nonetheless.

“I’m not.” Nate replied and there's no way Sophie could ever stop the bullet train of a smirk that taps at her lips because of the damn smirk that meets his own. 

“You're playing my side.” Sophie always knew retirement would never work, not while Nate was out there, breathing and fainting her with his mere existence, that sloppy grin of his smirking at some other woman on the other side of the world. She glanced back at the huddle of younger people behind him and knew he never quite got to the opposite side of the world, just a little ways away from her, tethered ironically by fate, and she smiled big and wide directly at him. “I always knew you had it in you.”

“So,” His breath hitched dangerously, “Are you in?”

She hadn't stopped grinning ridiculously, “Oh, I wouldn't miss this.”

He noticed it all, her face, her dangerous proximity, the shadows and time they forgot, and Nate blushed instinctively, an awkward reaction for a grown man, “All right, All right.” He took a step back, _needed to_ , and he turned to the three young criminals stationed at a safe distance behind him, in need of breath, “Let’s break the law one last time.”

She'd be lying if she said their interaction stopped replaying in her mind for any of the time she was in the car to Hardison’s apartment. 

*************

The next time that he approached her, that lusty glare of hers was trapped and expanding among the confines of his brain. Being so close to her multiplied his crazy inebriation, and Sophie decidedly was going to have none of him whilst he was in this self-destructing state of mind. 

“Soph?” He asked, his voice low over her shoulder as she flipped aimlessly through a magazine. Her eyes rose upward to meet his and she briefly glances around, blood rising when she realizes they're completely alone in Hardison’s apartment, “Can we talk about yesterday?”

So, so, so easily Sophie could have gone on and on about how out of nowhere Nate appeared asking (practically demanding) for her help. She could have, but instead she only grinned coyly, her throat dry, and breathed, “I’m Anna right now.”

And for some reason that threw him. He stammered weakly for a minute before a sigh whistled against his lips. 

“Well, Anna, Could you please tell Sophie that I would like to talk to her.”

Her smile felt fake, her eyes glazing over the way it always did before a lie, “I'll see what she can do, Mr Ford.”

She didn't want to hurt any more than she already had. 

*************

The year that followed was easy, a serene pause on the chaotic life Sophie Devereaux had become accustomed to leading. She had help now, a couple extra pairs of hands to do the work that under different conditions would cause her to double over in exhaustion. She thinks everything is alright, thinks this feeling is normal and she puts on that smile and tries to look away when Nate catches her watching him. And for a long while, nothing other than not-so-discreet glances and dumping of expensive alcohol down stainless steel sinks bothers either of them. 

But then she started to feel the pressure again. A mid life crisis? Something more? She wasn't entirely sure, but Sophie knew that she was feeling more and more like somebody that just isn't her, an awkward combination of Charlotte, and Anna, and Laura, and Annie, and Katherine, and Sophie, and everything in between. And so she finds herself in the middle of a cemetery, short of breath, and standing in front of Nate praying to God that he of all people at least minutely understood and could manage to sympathize with the way her chest was constantly being swallowed up by her heart and brain in peculiar, synchronized tandem. 

But he didn't. Nate didn't understand and just like that, standing between a slab of stone with a name and another with a date, she realized why she felt like she was being turned inside out. 

Two years of hiding the wrinkles and scars and grey hairs and Sophie had gotten quite good at it. But she was too good. She buried her true flesh under piles of lies and momentary knickknacks. She didn't know who she was and being so close to Nate was only blurring her vision. 

“Starke was right.” Sophie said, sensing Nate’s presence more than anything as he watched her from behind, “I'm not Sophie Devereaux anymore. I haven't been for ages. I...” She paused and there's that feeling again, like a werewolf is buried in her stomach, clawing to get out, “You killed her. You and your silly crusade.”

He's not quite sure what to say because despite Sophie’s greatest wishes, Nate Ford is not a particularly eloquent man, “It's just a name.” He says, and his voice falls flat. 

And she pours her heart out to Nate Ford as much as she can in the middle of a cemetery right beside a grave designed for a certain part of herself and a patch of land designated for another. He tried to stop her, tried to tell her that he sees her when she looks, feels her eyes follow him when he enters a room.

Nate so badly wanted to yell after her when she turned away from him, “I know you’re aging!” Because she didn't used to do that. She didn't do that before him, and he hopes that she didn't because that meant she waited for him, mind and body and soul, but his throat catches because both of them are damaged way beyond wrinkles and gray hairs and irrevocable scars and she's nimble, even for a thief, and she's gone before Nate could quite fish the words out of his throat and chest, and Nate was left gaping in regret in the middle of a cemetery. 

*************

Then it’s San Lorenzo. Oh, San Lorenzo. 

She came back for him, and he went to prison for her. Figures the universe would work this way when it comes to the two of them. It started her clock but won't stop it's own and Sophie finds herself questioning if it's all worth it. 

“ _Damn the pain_ ” She mutters to herself as she downs another glass and leans into Nate. Moreau was gone and the entire country assumed her to be dead. She didn't want to care so much. 

And then somehow not caring so much multiplied and computed and somehow equated into tumbling into bed with a mastermind whom she has been in love with since they first met. 

The mastermind awoke the next morning to a chattering headache and the sun’s limbs splayed across the hotel floor like gold bars. An odd portrayal of something unfamiliar and warm spread through his stomach and when he looks down at the lovely figure beside him he thinks he recognizes it as… _bliss_. 

Nate touches her hair as it splays across satin pillows, ebony streaks falling on ivory hills. He presses gentle finger tips to the spot where her ear meets her neck, where her neck meets her shoulder, her wrist to her hand. She’s beautiful like this, asleep and content and suddenly his biggest fear in the world is waking her up because then he would lose this. And so Nate sits and sits and thinks and stares and tries not to smile when he thinks of the fact that Sophie Devereaux is _in his bed_. 

He knows he should care about where they are at the moment, that they’re together and naked and bundled after a drunken evening that could have very possibly been a ginormous mistake. He's pretty sure she sure as hell does after her whole speech about _‘finally being just friends’_ but for once in his life Nate Ford couldn't care less. He just wants to be in the moment. With her. 

**************

They dance around each other for another year after that, and it's all scarily similar to that year before she left.

The two of them hide and lie and pretend like everything is _completely_ normal when in reality nothing is. No, their worlds and goals are flipped end over end and nothing will ever be the same between the two of them.

At first, they try to stay just friends, but the temptation is too great and suddenly there's some… extras thrown in there, too, and they’re friends with extras and so much more. 

Much too often Nate finds himself ushering them off toward a closet or empty room. He finds himself pressing his lips to her neck and biting down, sucking until he’s satisfied, hands roaming as Sophie fights back in the same exact way, with moans and hands, and none of it is what healthy relationships are based on, so they pretend it’s no big deal and they keep doing their jobs. 

When the others find out through the Mako’s attempt at intimidation, Sophie blushes and pulls Nate’s jacket tighter around her shoulders, hoping and hoping they push it off until another time. 

She painfully watched as Parker and Hardison shake their heads and she prays to the gods that they don't try to make a big deal out of the whole thing, because she herself hadn't thought about the relationship enough to sort what she really wanted ( _Nate, she wanted Nate_ ) and what she didn't want ( _she dreaded the pain that would come with it, with him, with age_ ).

**************

Sophie achingly realizes that whether she's with Nate or not, whether she's shouting her feelings from the rooftops or halfway across the world, Nate’s pain will eternally be in synchronicity with her own, a puzzle of mirrors and gravestones.

His father dies and Nate is crushed all over again, drunk and stumbling through secret tunnels and overt death wishes. Sophie wants to reach out and catch him and tell him that everything will be alright, but Sophie will forever be afraid that ‘friends with extras’ is all he will ever want, so she steps back and tries to offer calm words from an arm’s length distance.

She can practically _smell_ the self-loathing from the opposite end of the compound when she and the kids chase after him, desperately maneuvering through the labyrinth to stop the man that she loves from making another mistake and causing more pain. 

They stand at the balcony, and Sophie’s fingers dig and dig into the cool metal until her knuckles turn white. She watches the apprehension and contempt and strategy juggle across his expression. Until Nate’s eyes somehow miraculously lock with her own and this odd sort of...care stops him, causes him to falter, and Nate knows he’s done. He sets the gun down and waits for the shot, the smoke, the splash. 

Nate looks up at Sophie and knows he has some planning to do. He can't _stand_ being just ‘friends with extras’ anymore, not after all the pain. 

****************

Nate has never been happier than he is in Portland. Correction: Nate has never been happier than he is with Sophie. 

And that's precisely why he goes down onto his knee with a ring in his hand, a big sparkling diamond that he swears is just a little (a lot less, really, in his opinion) beautiful than her smile. 

Nate is ever-aware of how Parker and Hardison and Eliot are listing everything possibly wrong with him, but all Nate can think of is everything so incredibly _right_ that has to do with her and him (but mostly her). 

When Nate slips the ring on her finger, Sophie kisses him passionately and lovingly, as if trying to prove all the words that fall silent on her lips, lost through time and space. 

There's a tear rolling down her cheek when she pulls away, “I spent millennia roaming this earth looking for this, Nathan Ford. Looking for you, and this messed up thing we have, and I'm so, so glad that I finally did.”

He can't _not_ kiss her after that, “You don't have to look anymore. We can be mortal now. Together.” And she melts inside at that.

Sophie Devereaux never thought she would be this sickeningly, head over heels in love with the beautiful bastard that was Nathan Ford.

***************

Sophie Devereaux was no small name nor small face. She had stolen art from benevolent lords and the hearts of the greatest kings. But now, one scar, several wrinkles, and many strands of grey hair later, she was eternally anchored among the war torn trenches that were Nate Ford, a dangerous place to be for an (ex) art thief.

But nearly a year later, with her hair unabashedly washed in grey, Sophie Devereaux was just as much in love with Nathan Ford as ever. 

After they married, Sophie never dyed her hair again, never even thought about covering up the streaks of age that being with Nate brought out. Because, that was just it, the physically marks that fed on her body and all that lost time were part of her and part of Nate and she wouldn't trade Nate for anything in the universe. 

They had settled on a beach, somewhere odd between San Lorenzo and Boston and Prague and Paris and Portland. It was without thefts or cons or cops on their tail. It was nothing but them. It's their home for the rest of their lives, the place they will grow well old together, side by side, weary eyed and wrinkly and bent over in exhaustion. 

Sophie walks along the beaches at sunset nearly every night, hand in hand with Nate. She watches the gold rays shimmer against blue water and he watches the way her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks. 

She likes to kick the sand, feel the particles climb up the back of her calves and trickle back down and remind her that all this is real. She watches the way the sand ripples imperfectly back into place after impact and she smiles just a little bit because Nate impacts her like that. All those years ago in the backwater art gallery of Prague, he had accidentally dug beneath her flesh, changed her from beneath and under and inside, then fought his way to her heart and changed the way she would look and feel for the rest of her life. 

While they walk, Nate’s arm is slung easily over Sophie’s shoulder, pulling her in. He plays with the tips of her hair, the pads of his fingers lightly following grey routes, memorized paths that he will forever find mesmerizing. His other hand slips into her own, and she doesn't even notice. She’s already smiling, though. She's always smiling nowadays, so faraway from the lonely, immortal girl who was hung with heavy recklessness on her shoulders and loneliness in her mind. 

She was no longer immortal, never would be again. But, she wasn't lonely either, _and she never would be again_.


End file.
